A BRADFORD taxi driver heard over his radio that his friend and fellow cabbie Mohammed Basharat had been shot, a murder trial jury was told today.

Sameer Wanoo told Bradford Crown Court he was working for Little Horton Private Hire based in the city’s Park Lane almost 20 years ago when Mr Basharat was killed.

The jury has heard that Mr Basharat, 33, known as Bash, was executed in cold blood in the taxi office at 8.20pm on October 20, 2001.

He was struck by two bullets, in the head and the mouth, and died where he lay.

Ricardo Linton, 45, of no fixed address, pleads not guilty to murdering Mr Basharat and attempting to murder another private hire driver, Jamshad Khan.

Prosecutor Richard Wright QC has told the jury that a man in a green balaclava walked into the taxi officer with a revolver, pointed it at Mr Basharat and pulled the trigger.

Mr Basharat sustained “a devastating and inevitably fatal head injury,” Mr Wright said.

The gunman then turned his weapon on Jamshad “Jimmy” Khan, and pulled the trigger but the gun failed.

He then turned and left the taxi office.

Mr Wright alleged it was a targeted attack after a “minor and inconsequential” incident of road rage the previous day.

Mr Wanoo said Mr Basharat told him he had been involved in “a little fight” on Park Lane.

They were all talking about it at the taxi base, he told the jury.

Mr Basharat said his vehicle had priority and the other guy did not stop. He described him as a black man and said another black man present just stood there.

Mr Wanoo said he was working in West Bowling, Bradford, when the radio operator said Bash had been shot.

He saw him on the floor in the doorway to the radio room.

“I tried to shake him but got no response,” he said.

Mr Basharat’s car was parked right outside the office and he moved it to make way for the ambulance.

Mr Wanoo said Bash told him the man in the road rage incident threatened: “You’re messing with the wrong guy.”

Mohammed Salim, joint owner of Little Horton Private Hire in 2001, said that the day before he was killed, Mr Basharat told him he had been in a “tussle” with a driver he described as “a light-coloured West Indian.”

Something had happened to Mr Basharat’s eye and he was wearing glasses and not his contact lenses.

Mr Salim said he went straight to the taxi office when he heard Bash had been shot. He was lying on the floor being treated by paramedics.

The trial continues.